The present disclosure relates generally to cache memory management and, more particularly, to cache memory management in multi-core central processing units.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Electronic devices of all types frequently rely on processors to perform computing tasks, which may process instructions or data stored in one or more memory devices. To improve processor efficiency, cache memory may store frequently- or recently-accessed memory in a form more rapidly accessible to the processor. When more than one processor has access to main memory, as may frequently occur in multi-core or other multiprocessor systems, a portion of the main memory may be simultaneously stored as cache memory associated with two or more processors. To maintain the integrity of memory used in multi-core or other multiprocessor systems, various cache coherence techniques have been devised.
One common cache coherence technique involves bus snooping, in which processors broadcast memory references to each other on a dedicated bus so that data can be transferred between caches rather than accessing main memory. While bus snooping may enable cache coherence, bus snooping may also consume resources, such as power and time, and thus may reduce processor efficiency. Moreover, as the number of processors in a multi-core or multiprocessor system increases, the amount of snooping and broadcasting may increase exponentially, reducing the efficiency of such systems accordingly.